There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life

Why do we need data to support theory 2? It's a statement of a belief supported by faith. It falls within the remit of religion, not science, so the data you desperately seek is not needed by those that believe it.

They may not need data to support it, but if they wish to inhabit the same reality as everyone else and try to teach others that the universe was, indeed, created in six days, had they not better provide better evidence than "It's part of my faith?"

Whilst it may be what Christians believe, for them to try and tell others that it is the way things are is a blatant un-truth.
 
They may not need data to support it, but if they wish to inhabit the same reality as everyone else and try to teach others that the universe was, indeed, created in six days, had they not better provide better evidence than "It's part of my faith?"

Whilst it may be what Christians believe, for them to try and tell others that it is the way things are is a blatant un-truth.

Christians believe what they are told in the Bible, by more learned Christians (so long as it doesn't contravene the Bible, if they've sense enough to check what they're taught, as the Bible instructs them to) and by God. Faith doesn't require evidence, just belief.

Besides, I doubt the apparent scientific inaccurary of creation is what is stopping millions of people from becoming Christians. Either way, I'm not going to argue the toss on the creation story, as I personally believe the Genesis account to be allegorical.
 
Just out of interest, what would people pray about it? Like I said just interested as with me not believing, I have no need to look into stuff like that.

Pray that Christian's aren't drawn away from their faith, that atheists aren't reinforced in their lack of it and that those wavering on the border don't choose atheism off the back of this campaign.
 
Christians believe what they are told in the Bible, by more learned Christians (so long as it doesn't contravene the Bible, if they've sense enough to check what they're taught, as the Bible instructs them to) and by God. Faith doesn't require evidence, just belief.

I understand, but this whole concept to me is the complete opposite of what I consider to be a logical approach to undertsanding the world. To still have faith in certain doctrines which have been proven in reality to be untrue, boggles my mind somewhat.

I went to a C of E primary school and beleived in God whilst I was there...I was taught about religion and Jesus and God and all the other Christian paraphanalia. Then as I grew older I began to realise that it all amounted to little more than stories and doctrine handed down from our ancestors with little or no regard to the real world. Much like how I stopped believing in Father Christmas when I suddenly realised that the concept of a man who visists every single child on Earth in one evening with a flying sleigh pulled by magical reindeer was not only a story but a physical immpossibility given the reality I inhabit.

You can tell me again that faith requires no evidence, but it seems that at some point even the faithful will have to come to terms with tangible aspects of reality.
 
We could still apply the rules of logic though and personally I don't ascribe to not being able to perceive "reality" as it is. I don't deny the mind has an effect though-but that is not the Case in all cases.

Explain optical illusions.

EDIT: Also, to what can you ascribe the rules of logic? Science is neither logically necessary, nor is religion logically invalid, and as a result logic does nothing to further this debate.
 
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Christians believe what they are told in the Bible, by more learned Christians (so long as it doesn't contravene the Bible, if they've sense enough to check what they're taught, as the Bible instructs them to) and by God. Faith doesn't require evidence, just belief.

And this is my entire issue with the concept - that of faith. I'm not going to beliive something without evidence, it just doesn't make sense from my perspective.

I don't know, I don't support theory 2...

However, given that religion != christianity, and there are a lot of religions that make no such claims that conflict so directly with observable evidence, all you've really demonstrated is that part of christanity is unlikely to be true.

It was an example, replace that statement with any other religious statement for which there is no testable premise. The entire concept of an omni-present being for example.
 
By stating I'm wrong you're not proving anything - if you want to debate this issue then back it up with facts.

Every source I can find gives the percentage of > 75% for Muslims in Palestine.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_Palestinian_territories#Religions

West Bank:
"Muslim 75% (predominantly Sunni), Jewish 17%, Christian and other 8% (If East Jerusalem is included, then Jews account for some 20-25% of the West Bank's population)"

Gaza:
Muslim 98.7% (predominantly Sunni), Christian 0.7%, Jewish 0%

You've instantly adopted a very aggressive stance, and also stated that I'm ignorant when all I'm doing is presenting facts and reasoned opinion.

Ok, I apologise for my aggressive stance - bad day etc.

Yes Christians are only a minority of Palestinians but a significant minority at that. Remember that until recently, the main leadership of the Palestinian people, the PLO, were a secular organisation representing all Palestinians. It was convenient for Israel and the West to portray them as a Muslim organisation, especially after terrorist attacks carried out by Muslims in the PLO, but it's just not the case.
 
Can I ask a christian here to explain why they don't believe that Zeus, Hecate, Venus, Shiva etc etc exist ?
I mean on one level there's actually zero evidence they existed. As a different point most respected historians agree that Jesus was a man who walked this earth.

Obviously whether or not Jesus was the son of God is a contenscious issue but at the end of the day I guess it just comes down to faith. Someone else has the right to worship those Gods just as I believe in Jesus Christ and have the right to follow Christianity. It just happens to be that I believe that I'm correct and they're mistaken or misguided... just like everyone does regarding there religous beliefs - christian, muslim, jew, atheist etc.
 
Christians believe what they are told in the Bible, by more learned Christians (so long as it doesn't contravene the Bible, if they've sense enough to check what they're taught, as the Bible instructs them to) and by God. Faith doesn't require evidence, just belief.
Can you tell me why you believe?

I'd be genuinely interested if you don't want to talk too much about it on here.
 
It just happens to be that I believe that I'm correct and they're mistaken or misguided... just like everyone does regarding there religous beliefs - christian, muslim, jew, atheist etc.

I would say pretty much all religions have the same destination - i.e. belief in an Ultimate Reality, just the paths are different and full of obstacles.
 
And it doesn't mean that it is.

I have no objection to Christians telling me they believe, it's the ones that tell me I should believe that I have a problem with.

And that is where faith comes into it. Unless you see God with your own eyes, you will need to apply faith to make that leap. I have not seen God, yet I fully believe in him. This belief comes through contemplataion as to what and why we are and the answers that I have found to these questions.

I fully agree about people shoving religion down peoples throat - they should get their own houses in order first and then just live by example.
 
We could still apply the rules of logic though and personally I don't ascribe to not being able to perceive "reality" as it is. I don't deny the mind has an effect though-but that is not the Case in all cases.

the rules of logic are only a series of processes you apply to existing data and assumptions to reach a result. The only thing that a result has to fulfill to be logical is that it's consistant with the data and the assumptions used to arrive at it.
 
I've not heard that term before do you mind me asking what you mean?

It's a mystical phrase for God, Brahman, Dharmakaya...etc The source of our being, endless and timeless.

"There is not a single tribe on Earth to whom a message has been sent"... so it is only inevitbale that we have so many variations leading to the same destination.
 
And that is where faith comes into it. Unless you see God with your own eyes, you will need to apply faith to make that leap. I have not seen God, yet I fully believe in him. This belief comes through contemplataion as to what and why we are and the answers that I have found to these questions.
Without being condescending, that is perfectly fine with me :).
 
I understand, but this whole concept to me is the complete opposite of what I consider to be a logical approach to undertsanding the world. To still have faith in certain doctrines which have been proven in reality to be untrue, boggles my mind somewhat.

There's nothing illogical about it, because logic is applied after assumptions and data collection. What you can't understand is some of the assumptions christians believe to be true (I'm right there with you incidentally) and therefore you cannot come to the same conclusion they do through the application of logic.

You have faith in assumptions to be true as well, if you believe the scientific explaination of the world, but they are different assumptions that seem more sensible to you.

I went to a C of E primary school and beleived in God whilst I was there...I was taught about religion and Jesus and God and all the other Christian paraphanalia. Then as I grew older I began to realise that it all amounted to little more than stories and doctrine handed down from our ancestors with little or no regard to the real world. Much like how I stopped believing in Father Christmas when I suddenly realised that the concept of a man who visists every single child on Earth in one evening with a flying sleigh pulled by magical reindeer was not only a story but a physical immpossibility given the reality I inhabit.

You can tell me again that faith requires no evidence, but it seems that at some point even the faithful will have to come to terms with tangible aspects of reality.

But the vast majority of religions (including a fair number of christians) do not believe anything that conflicts directly with what is scientificially demonstratable, especially if they take an allegorical, rather than literal interpretation of the bible, or believe in one of the many other spiritual ideas that really don't have the same sorts of stories invovled in them at all.

Faith and scientific belief are not mutually incompatible in the vast majority of cases, so coming to terms with tangible aspects of reality does nothing to change the vast majority of faith, because they weren't in conflict in the first place, especially when you interpret the science correctly as to what the scientific method is actually telling you.
 
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